Public accommodation and social engineering

That’s the title of my new piece at Mises.org. In it, I outline the problems with public accommodation not just in terms of the types of problems it creates, but logical flaws with the doctrine itself. I highlight three specific problems:

1. Public accommodation turns the law into a mechanism for social engineering.

2. Public accommodation leads to unenforceable laws.

3. Public accommodation seizes control of businesses from their rightful owners.

This is by far my most controversial article yet. Public accommodation comes from the Civil Rights Act. It’s the vehicle by which the state enforces desegregation. Criticizing it entails undermining what the vast majority of people understand to be the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement.

But truth is truth. Public accommodation is a vehicle for tyranny. There are far better ways to advance the cause of equal rights—a cause I totally support—than with state-endorsed violence.